Privacy Policy 


Who are we? 

LIFE-FORCE Centre (The Organisation) hereinafter referred to as ‘we’. Registered Office and postal address: 3 East Hill, Colchester, Essex CO1 2QL.
Contact details: Telephone: 01206 791661, E-mail: info@lifeforce-centre.co.uk.
This Privacy Policy was updated: 27th February 2024.
We are a ‘controller’ of personal information under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and other relevant UK and EU legislation. 


What information will we collect from you? 

We will only collect information from you that is relevant to the matter that we are dealing with.  In particular, we may collect the following information from you which is defined as ‘personal data’: 

Personal details / Contact details

Family, lifestyle and social circumstances 

Financial details 

Any other personal information that might relate to your matter 


Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the lawful bases we rely upon for processing personal information are, one or more of the following:   

Your consent. You are able to remove your consent at any time.  

We have a contractual obligation.

We have a legal obligation.

We have a vital interest.

We need it to perform a public task.

We have a legitimate interest.


We may also collect information that is referred to as being in a ‘special category’. This could include, for example: 

Racial or ethnic origin 

Religious beliefs or philosophical beliefs 

Physical or mental health details 

Sexual life or sexual orientation 


Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), to lawfully process special category data,  we identify both a lawful basis (listed above) and one of the separate conditions listed below:

Explicit consent

Employment, social security and social protection 

Vital interests

Not-for-profit bodies

Made public by the data subject

Legal claims or judicial acts

Reasons of substantial public interest 

Health or social care 

Public health 

Archiving, research and statistics 


How will we use your information? 

We will mainly use your information for the provision of counselling services. Other uses may cover, for example: 

Administering any accounts 

Processing you bank details for payments 

Market Research 

Marketing 

The prevention and detection of fraud 


On what basis will we process your data? 

We will process your data on the following basis: providing you with further information, processing your counselling enquiry and obtaining feedback anonymously.

We will process your ‘special category’ data on the following additional conditions: 

for the purposes of referring you to the appropriate counsellor

for statistical purposes, doing so proportionately and anonymising your data


Who will we share your information with? 

Under our Data Protection Policy, there are very strict rules about who we can share your information with and this will be on a strictly need to know basis and limited to other people who will assist with your matter. This may include: 

Office Staff 

Counsellors – Team/Student on Placement/Independent

Medical experts/practitioners, however, this is only normally carried out after first gaining your explicit written consent

Where you authorise, we may also disclose your information to your family, friend or representative. 

Accident, incident and complaints: Insurers, solicitors and any necessary professional body.

We do not share or sell your data to any other company for marketing purposes. We do not transfer or store your data outside the UK.


How long will we keep your information for? 

We will keep your personal and special category information throughout the period of time that we do work for you and afterwards for a period of up to seven years dependent on the data. For child counselling some data is required to be kept for a period of seven years after the child reaches the age of eighteen. Data such as your name and email address for marketing purposes, is kept until you unsubscribe from our newsletters.


What rights do you have? 

You have a series of rights under the GDPR which includes the ‘Right of access’ as detailed below. Further information on all these rights and how to exercise them can be obtained from our Data Controller. 


Rights of access

You have a right to see the information we hold about you.  To access this, you need to provide a request in writing to our Data Controller together with proof of identity that is reasonable and proportionate, according to the information requested. We will usually process your request free of charge and within 30 days, however, we reserve the right to charge a reasonable administration fee and to extend the period of time by a further two months if the request is manifestly unfounded or vexatious and/or is very complex. 

Full details are available in our Data Protection Policy which is available on request from the Data Controller whose details are below. 


Right to have your personal and special categories information erased

In certain situations, you have the right to request we "erase" your personal data. We will respond to your request within the specified ICO timeframe, although we may be allowed to extend this period in certain cases and will only refuse your request if certain limited conditions apply.  If we can agree to your request, then you may be required to sign a Waiver Form before we could implement your request to delete your data. This would be on the understanding that for legal reasons we would need to retain the completed Waiver Form according to our Retention Policy. Should you subsequently wish us to retain your personal data again then we would need to confirm this request with you personally before proceeding accordingly.

Rights to remove consent

You have the right to remove your consent at any time, by contacting us via email: info@lifeforce-centre.co.uk 

We follow the ICO guidance that states: The data subject shall have the right to withdraw his or her consent at any time. The withdrawal of consent shall not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal. This means that there may be times where we continue to process your personal and special categories data that was collected when consent was provided. 

Who can you complain to? 

If you are unhappy about how we are using your information or how we have responded to your request, please contact our Data Controller who will look into the matter for you. 

If your complaint remains unresolved then you can also contact the Information Commissioner’s Office, details for which are available at www.ico.org.uk. 


Cookies on our website

We currently only use necessary cookies on our website, no analytical or marketing cookies are used.


Data Controller

For further information:

Contact: Nicole Joyce

Email: info@lifeforce-centre.co.uk 


Please click HERE to view our Data Protection Policy & Data Retention Periods Table (PDF)





3 East Hill, Colchester, Essex CO1 2QL
Telephone Number 01206 791661
Email info@lifeforce-centre.co.uk